


against my will i stand beside my own reflection

by YellowMagicalGirl



Category: Tales of Arcadia (Cartoons)
Genre: Claire Nuñez has Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Dissociation, Gen, Morgana does not actually show up in this, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Speculation, Tales of Arcadia: Wizards Speculation, Title from a Linkin Park Song, but she's important enough that she's getting tagged in the relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-26
Updated: 2020-07-26
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:35:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 587
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25523716
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YellowMagicalGirl/pseuds/YellowMagicalGirl
Summary: Having been sent backwards in time, Steve has to stop Claire from killing someone.
Relationships: Claire Nuñez & Steve Palchuk, Morgana | Pale Lady & Claire Nuñez
Comments: 1
Kudos: 25





	against my will i stand beside my own reflection

**Author's Note:**

> I decided to take a break from one of my fics to write out a scene that I hope might happen in Wizards. TBH, anyone could be the one talking Claire down in this, but I decided Steve was best in this case because of the parallels I wanted to draw.

Claire was _different_ than she was at the beginning of sophomore year.

Oh, who was Steve kidding? They all were different. Eli and Domzalski were more assertive, Jim was a freakin’ troll, and Steve was less violent towards people who didn’t deserve it.

Claire, on the other hand, had _become_ violent towards people who didn’t deserve it. Like King Arthur’s sister.

“What do you think you’re _doing?”_ Steve asked, placing a hand on Claire’s shoulder as the two of them watched Morgana from a balcony of Camelot’s castle. Claire jumped. Her eyes darted about, looking for danger, until finally she extinguished the spell she was preparing. She glanced behind herself, and then back at Steve.

“I can’t _believe_ you,” Claire whispered. “You made me miss my shot! Who knows when I’ll get another chance to eliminate her.”

“Really? You were going to try and kill her? You do remember just how hard it was to get King Arthur, Merlin, and the knights to trust us in the first place, right? You try and kill her, and we’re back to square one! Or worse!”

“Stay out of my way, Steve. You don’t know what she’s _done_ to me.”

In some ways, Claire had changed the most. She had changed after the play. She had changed when Jim was supposedly sick with Jim Lake disease (and Steve had been right! It _had_ been a fake!) She had changed on the day that Jim got the Creepslayerz to save the day with umbrellas.

And she had changed in a way that was so strange that Steve didn’t even believe his own eyes when he had seen it.

“Does it have anything to do with how your hair turned white, the evening you guys and me and Eli teamed up with you? Or what about that one time I caught you with golden eyes - and not like Douxie’s, they were _creepy_ \- and walking weird and about to uproot a sign?”

“You saw that?” A worrying amount of color drained from her face. Claire’s skin should have not been such a similar color to her bangs.

“I mean, I didn’t even know it was real until you just confirmed it, but yeah. So, did Morgana have anything to do with it?”

“She had _everything_ to do with it.” Claire’s voice was no longer aggressive. It was a type of scared he had never heard from Claire before. “Steve, Morgana took _everything_ from me. She mind controlled me, and she took my body and ripped my soul out of it. And yeah, sure, I got my body back, but all too often I feel like I’m not the person I used to be. No, scratch that. All too often I feel like I’m not a person at all. Just a weapon, or a husk, or a ghost. I can’t even look in a _mirror_ without being afraid that the reflection is going to hurt me because of what Morgana’s done to me.”

The hand not on Claire’s shoulder clenched into a fist. Steve remembered the day the school had gotten invaded by some troll who gave drugs to everyone, and he was surrounded by himself. He remembered being afraid that another Steve would kill him. He’s had more than one nightmare about that day, but it’s only ever manifested as a nightmare. Never when he was awake.

“We can’t kill Morgana,” Steve says. “Not when doing so is going to screw up our chances of going home. Something nonlethal, however... that might work.”


End file.
